Re: pabbrev.el version 2

From:

Phillip Lord

Subject:

Re: pabbrev.el version 2

Date:

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:34:19 +0100

User-agent:

Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.91 (gnu/linux)

Richard Riley <address@hidden> writes:
> Phillip Lord <address@hidden> writes:
>
> How do you see this comparing with normal hippie expand or the
> excellent company mode? It seems not so much as a abbreviation system as
> a completion system. e.g "kbd" would be an abbreviation for "keyboard"
> whereas "key" would not.
The UI is very different from hippie or dabbrev. It works as you go, so
you always know what the completion is going to be; in practice, I find,
this makes it more useful that hippie expand, although I use both.
Company mode I haven't tried yet. It looks fairly similar to predictive
mode, though. The difference here is simple; pabbrev.el is dumb,
predictive (and I guess company) is clever. In my hands the dumb
behaviour of pabbrev is good enough for most circumstances, and because
it's purely lexical it requires no configuration at all. As a result, it
does something reasonably useful anywhere; java, perl, latex, writing
email. pabbrev always provides some value, even where Emacs has little
knowledge of what you are editing.
Bottom line, pabbrev is quick to set up. The UI is simple to understand,
and quick to use. In the 6 years since I released it, there have been
more completion packages available, but pabbrev still does something
unique.
Phil